How To Grow Your Service Business w Speed And Accuracy w Mike Agugliaro
Tersh: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, out there in podcasts where you’re listening to or watching Service Business Mastery podcast, I’m your host Tersh Blissett.
Tersh: [00:00:06] Today’s episode, I have one of my mentors, coaches, one of the guys that made a massive impact on my life, not just through the business, but personally to we’ve been in each other’s world for about little over a year now. I can’t believe it’s been that long. It seems like that time has really flown by. But and it really, really has. But our business has gone from a rebrand. We’ve grown over 300 percent. Hell, we grew two hundred and fifty-six percent just in one month. And it’s by that direct guidance and challenge. And it’s weird because I’ve been part of other organizations before and nobody’s ever actually, like, held you to the fire. I mean, right now, if anybody knows me, they know me pretty well. They know that I’m into cars. And I have a challenge right now that I’m going to lose one of my cars if I don’t complete it. So it’s one of those things where it’s like it’s life-changing. And it’s weird to say that because if I had told I mean, if somebody had told me that, you know, a year and a half, two years ago, but whatever. Like what is it? You don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Yeah, whatever. But it’s weird because I truly am. It’s I’m in that situation and it has changed our life. And you can ask Julie as well whenever we when we go to events, you know, it’s. I see and I interview a lot of people throughout the podcast. I mean, we’re episode, what, four, 74, 75, something like that. So I’ve talked to a ton of people. And so there’s a lot of times where excuse me, there there are people who are very influential, but.
Tersh: [00:02:25] There are I don’t think I’ve had an interview with anybody where I’ve had coaching experience with someone who when you get finished with it, you’re like, wow, like.
Tersh: [00:02:36] Our life has changed and it is crazy. I’ll tell you this. I’ve never walked on fire before until I met this guy here and I went up to New Jersey and had no qualms about walking on fire following his lead. But with that being said, I really appreciate that Mike would come on the show. And I’d like to introduce Mike Agugliaro with The Warrior.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:03:04] Hey, what’s up? I’m super excited to be here today with you. Matter of fact, I was watching another one of your episodes and I was like, Turse, what’s up? Like, you better get me on here. I and I probably said it in a way of, like, you better let me start to set the world straight a little bit in the service industry. And I love the way you were saying there about other people speaking. There’s a difference between information and transformation. And my whole goal has always been to not just give good information, but give transformational information. And so at the end of thought, the end of hearing a strategy that you make an instant decision that you’re going to change. And it’s the same for everybody. I mean, everybody is stuck in someplace, right. And they’re stuck either in the mental place. Right. We could talk a little bit about that where, you know, they think, you know, hey, I got it. Either all figured out or not figured out at all. Either I deserve a better life or I don’t either this industry is amazing or it’s not. Or I got one foot in my business or one foot out of my business. And I get that because the world when I talk about the world, I’ll let you know what I’m talking about, the global world or the service industry world. And here’s what I learned in the service industry world in terms you know this. But I’m saying it for anybody that’s lived here. You know, we’re in over 40 different industries now.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:04:45] We’re in pest control, plumbing, heating, cooling, electric drain cleaning, remodeling, landscaping. The list goes on and on. But here’s notoriously what I see in all these segments. There’s a whole lot of hot air, there’s a whole lot. And I think not only do I think I know that there’s been a period of time that in the service industry we lost our way. And let me explain this. And it you know, when I go back to a kid and I’m what I call level 50 now, that’s a more powerful way to say 50 years of age, level 50. You get wiser and stronger every year. When I go back to when I was a kid, even I went to a vocational school. I graduated in nineteen eighty-eight. And when I go back then, I was already in the trades and I look at it was still like real strong men, real strong women given real good quality service. And you stood for something. We really stood for what you did. And then I think it’s probably within the last maybe twenty years or so people got lost in this service industry has started what I would call to become very dirty. And let me explain what dirty is dirty practices, manipulation, lack of integrity. And I knew that there would be a time that this would change. Now, look, anybody most people that are probably less nutrition in the world probably knows who I am, that if you don’t, I’m not here to brag, but I’ll let you know what I did only to make a point, because if I don’t make a point, why would you listen to me? To listen to me? And I built a company to thirty-two million.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:06:35] We did two hundred million in ten years. We had one hundred and sixty-five trucks, two hundred employees. And three years ago I sold to a 40 billion-dollar company. Now, what does that mean? It doesn’t mean I’m great. It means that I know the difference between right and wrong. I’ve learned the difference. And through these twenty years that I’m talking about, we’ve created an industry where we feel that we have to be trickery. We have to go out there and we have to call things different names to confuse customers. And we’ve got to try to modify things. And it actually became pretty damn upsetting to me. And a lot of people say, well, Mike, why did you start this CEO warrior thing and hands down? It was to change the industry. And I may not have shared it this way before, but an industry that’s become very ego-driven, very dirty, driven, very manipulative. And I don’t like that. I think they gave a bad name where we have to start calling things like, you know, triple. Flock’s igniters and stuff, we’ve become an industry of trying to learn ninja sales, translation manipulation, and I don’t believe you have to do any of that until you can live in a state. And guess what? I knew there’s a point where convergence comes in and terms.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:08:03] Let me tell you about convergence. Convergence is the moment where the superhero meets the villain, OK? And in the superhero I’m in and I’m not the only superhero when I say I’m talking about SEAL Warrior as a whole, we’re not the only superheroes, but I’m going to put this in. The superhero bracket meets the villain. The villain is what you’re seeing right now being taken down. You’re seeing people that are getting caught for doing manipulative bad practices and the world is no longer going to tolerate it. So they’re slamming the sledgehammer on these people. There’s no longer a day you’re going to walk around and brag you sold something for 40 times the price of what it should be. Now, don’t get me wrong. Should you make an amazing living? Should you know your prices? Should you charge the right price for your company? Yes. Should you listen to somebody in some Facebook group that says you should just raise your prices, somebody who doesn’t know your business, doesn’t know your area, doesn’t know your position? Should you just go, oh, I guess I should be a couple hundred more an hour? No, listen, not all information is great and some information people are getting today, Tersh, it’s the right information at the wrong time. And you have these what I’ll call these puppets in the world, these smiling puppets. Right. These big mouths of the world running around. And because they now have a business, you know, and I don’t want to be too rude but congratulation puppy dogs.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:09:47] Right. You now grow business to two, three, five million. And now you have an ego that you think is serving you, but it’s actually hurting people. It’s hurting people because you now are telling people to do things that are not scalable over time. So I tell you, all of you should be on tablets. I don’t know if all of you should be on tablets. Should you do you have to be is it a real thing? You know, there’s always you should wrap your truck like this. I don’t know. Is that the right color, right shape. Right time, right market. Is there any strategy put through it? And this is the part where I’m so excited tersh because of this convergence that’s happening, I do believe that the superhero always wins. I think it no matter how much the villain throws kryptonite, no matter the superheroes come in and that’s our number one purpose. And please, anybody listening to this, I’d like to think a big difference between us and the rest of the world is I am not here today to convince you to do anything. I’m not here to convince you to buy something from me, to join me, or even believe me, I’m only here to serve in the industry. And I think that’s what makes us very different. And I’ve seen, Tarsia said so many people on this podcast. I’m a believer that if I deliver value to and it makes sense, you might say maybe I should learn more. And if not, it is perfectly OK with me.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:11:21] I want to at least instill some different thinking in you. Thinking of is your business. When you go to bed at night, do you feel really good? And I used to say this. Turse When I kiss my kids, which now my kids, my son is twenty-one years old and he’s got a big old beard, is deadly, is can run his own combat martial arts training business online. And my daughter is 18 and runs her own online yoga business already. And like when I kiss my son, which I do just about every single night before I go to bed last night, I walk downstairs down and I get the whole bunch beard in my face. And I know that I’m kissing my kids with very good, clear integrity lips. And this is something that we set forth six years ago. And Turse has heard this before. It’s to change the damn industry. Let’s get back to what it was like when your grandfather did it. The same morals, the same ethics. Right. Let’s get it back. And I would like to say that hands down. I know. See, your warrior has made an impact in changing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lives and giving them away to believe in business. Believing that you could do business and love it and love your people and love your customers in a way and know that you’re making an impact and you’re going to change the world. So that’s a lot to be said.
Tersh: [00:12:57] But I mean, there’s so much information there to read. I mean, to to unravel at the same time, because and everything that you said, there is absolute truth.
Tersh: [00:13:07] I mean, like you touched a little bit on you touched a little bit on the non pillars, even though you didn’t come out and say, and I have it on my wall right here. I mean, I have them pinned to the wall. And I would come back with.
Tersh: [00:13:26] It’s I love the fact that within the year, warrior, whenever somebody asks, hey, what’s the average, you know, what’s your average ticket price be or what should our average conversion rate be or what should you know, the average conversion rate of a six or an average conversion rate of a service expert. And every time the response is not cookie-cutter at all, it’s, you know, well, what were you doing before? And then you’re like, you’re working. There’s no like, oh, industry-standard says you need to be at 30 percent or you need to do thirty-three percent of this or 80 percent of that.
Tersh: [00:14:02] And it’s always, there’s always this working towards excellence type mentality.
Tersh: [00:14:08] And I love how nothing is ever.
Tersh: [00:14:12] Well your vans should have this logo on it at this place or you know and you should always be this color, just the fact that you have to take into consideration your entire area. And that’s a huge thing. And that’s that goes back to and nothing’s pushed on you either.
Tersh: [00:14:30] And that’s what I like about it. It’s like, all right, I’m exactly the way service calls are run for a service expert. The options are offered to you. And you just you make your decision based on everything that you’re being offered. And whenever I first went before I first came to the first event that I went to, I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine up in Charleston. We had a soccer tournament for my kids. And he’s in the industry with the business up in Charleston.
Tersh: [00:15:05] And I was and he and he was like he was very familiar with CEO Warrior and like a and everybody. And I was like, I’m not changing my band. I’m not changing my logo. I’m not changing my colors. You know, I’m not changing my name. I’m not doing any of this stuff and I’m not joining it when I go there. And I was going up there like the next week or something. And here we go. We rebranded, we’ve changed our logo to a lion or orange instead of blue. And in every part of it was like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
Tersh: [00:15:38] Like, why didn’t I to totally make sense once it’s presented to you. And it’s not one of those things like, hey, look, that’s stupid, you got to change it.
Tersh: [00:15:48] We we had a conversation yesterday and it was hilarious. I mean, it’s like, all right, do you want to keep doing it that way or do you want to do it this way?
Tersh: [00:15:57] And you presented what was what you said was not a better way of doing it, but what you found the most success with a lot of research doing this. And I’m like, oh, yeah, that makes total sense. So, like, I’m here jotting down notes on everything to change on that and that particular item. But it’s it was just like whenever I was at the first was an SBGI. I feel like this or what was right before the service business edge that my OK that might have been then I was like, OK, so that was there. And I was like, all right, we’re getting into the service tech or the service expert portion of it, like here comes the voodoo. Like what? What are we going to do about like how do we like? Well, what if I heard somebody say before, like, take your pin and drop it right in front of them so that they catch it so that they put their you know, they feel obligated to sign the piece of paper with the pin and whatever I’m like, this is what I’m expecting. And then all of a sudden I’m like, hang on, I got to take a break because this is nothing like what I expected. Like, we’re just offering options and they’re not even like misworded options. They’re just all right. And I was like.
Tersh: [00:17:13] Where do we get into the voodoo stuff, like talking people into stuff like that? That’s what I’m trying to figure out here. I want to get into the nuts and bolts of talking somebody into doing something they don’t want to do. And, yeah, we never got to that. And I was like, OK, all right, this is cool. Like, I like this. And I think it was, you know, a couple of hours later, I’m signing up for Cold Warrior and haven’t looked back.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:17:34] So, you know, what’s interesting about that is which I’m glad most if not all of, but most of the gurus out there no need to mention if they watch this, they know who they are. They have changed what they said. They have changed their belief system. They haven’t turned around and said, oh, it’s because they see a warrior and that’s OK. But they know that it’s, you know, the the the villains being called on the map by me because I don’t believe in it at all. And, you know, I’ve been in all kinds of organizations, like a lot of people listening to this. And I’m not saying they’re good or bad, but I will tell you what’s important in my world is I’m just as proud as the guy who’s one guy in the truck is a guy who has one hundred trucks. I don’t look down if someone small and I don’t look up if they’re big, everybody’s equal because, at the end of the day, everybody in the service industry wants one thing just a little better of life. That’s all they’re looking for, a little more freedom, a little more wealth to help them have some stability in life. Everybody’s looking for the solutions so that they don’t have to tell their kids, I can’t help you or you can’t have this. And that’s all they’re looking for. And when you get down to that, that fundamental thing of what everybody looks for, well, then you could start to build some solutions for them. And I remember being in an organization where all they did was talk about this one mega-company.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:19:16] Well, a couple like to look at them. You know, we got hundreds of trucks there. Amazing. You could be like them. And I said, yeah, but you’re making me feel incompetent where I’m at today. I know. Maybe I want to get there, but you’re making me feel like a loser today. I don’t want to. What about this? Instead of just focusing on them, why don’t you put me in my one truck on stage and tell me what to do? And it’s boring because I remember and I won’t mention this organization. I don’t believe in them at all. But I remember walking up to a coffee table and a guy was there and I was like, Hey, how are you doing? He’s like, Oh, good. I like. And I said, Oh wow, what size company you run? He goes, I’m running fifty trucks. And I was like, wow. And what about yourself? You know, it’s all distinguished. What about yourself, you know? And I was like, we just bought our second one, I’m in one and my partners in one. And I’m so excited. And they were used to me. I’m not like today. Everybody got these fancy sprinter things, man. We had all. But it was not only was it used, it was an extended van. It was awesome, right. Yeah. And he goes, oh, well, it was nice to meet you. And he walked away. And I remember saying to myself, Are you kidding me? Yeah. That’s how this was all I was like, oh, sorry, sorry. Big shot. Sorry. Can you pull your shoes off so I could kiss your toes, please.
Tersh: [00:20:50] Later I found out it was this the brown van with the screw hole in the side of it.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:20:55] Yeah. Yeah. I love that brown bear. I love that. Actually, I wish if I could rewind time, I would have never got rid of those vans. I would have kept it as a memory club. Created what. But you know, this first and later I found out he had fifty trucks. Forty-five didn’t run. Only five of them were working the ass and ready to go out of business. And then I used the store. I made myself just like when we built our service company. I wanted to build a service company. I always wanted to work for. Same thing. The way we built CEO Warrior I wanted to have. Now we’re training and implementation organization because I believe if you have the choice between a coach and a blueprint, you just need the blueprint. You don’t have time. And I always say you starts. I’m like, when we get on, if we’re going to solve something, I’m like, I don’t need to know about the dog and kids right now. Send me a text message later. Let’s talk about solving a problem, OK? And, you know, I wanted to build a training and implementation organization that I always wanted to be in one full of power, one that challenged you, then one that was a community, a real brotherhood, and sisterhood. Really, if someone had a problem, they would grab you and lock arms and move forward. And this is. Not most guys, well, I can’t talk for, but most military people in the. Thank you, all the vets that are watching this and active military, they come to our world and they go, I’m in because I’ve never felt a connection to other people like this besides the military where someone is watching your back.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:22:34] And as you’re back and I get it, turns out we’re not a fit for everybody because some people, they just you know, they don’t want to be surrounded like we’re a pack of wolves. That’s just what we are. And I remember somebody said this to me, Turse this is years ago about this years ago, they said, I wish I remember, but I hope he watches this. He goes, all those CEO warriors, those bunch of chess pounders. And I was like, oh, well, let’s not forget who pounded their chests, like King Kong, Tarzan, like, hang on. Maybe we should walk around like puppet strings with a big smile on her face. Maybe that’s a better way to do it. You know, if you have a choice to live a life of feeling really strong, confident, powerful, serving your community, your family, your employees or weak, trying to like, hey, everybody, good morning. Now let’s sing our happy mantra. Good morning, everybody. It’s like for me or something. And I found out a lot of people don’t want to live in that in that world. They want to be in the world like you said. And I’m only upset that you said you might lose the car. And I’m not the one that’s getting it, because normally I want to be the leverage.
Tersh: [00:23:49] And it’s actually, you know, Denise’s grandson, granddaughter is going to get it, is what Denise said.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:23:55] They get that task. You better. It’s leverage, isn’t it? It is is leverage.
Tersh: [00:24:00] And as soon as it was made public in a Centurion call last Wednesday and they everybody in the groups like, oh, like it was just and so somebody was saying, let’s do a hundred push-ups in. And Denise is like that. That’s not center level. So as soon as that car got to put up, I mean, I had three text messages instantly, hey, what do I need to do to help you to make sure that you achieve that target? And so and then ever since then, I’ve had guys in our group that are like, hey, you know, what can I do to help? You know, how are you at your level? Have you reached that level? Have you picked up that that that top target? And it’s really been an awesome experience.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:24:44] How does that feel to know that there are others looking out for you and not just themselves? Because that’s my world. When I was in an organization, I felt it was all about everybody who was an individual. Everybody was like it was about me, me, me. It was never about we, we I’m not a mike and see your worry and you know, this Tersh like I’m not OK. Anybody suffers. I don’t want anybody. I’m not OK. Like you’re in our world and you’re not winning or you’re not happy or you’re not. Look in the end. I always said this, you could teach, you know, I see these puppets out there, you could teach a puppet how to grow a business. You can’t teach a puppet how to have an amazing life. So congratulations. You’ve built a big business and now you’re divorced. Congratulations. That doesn’t sound like fun. Or you build a big business, but you look pretty unhealthy like you’re going to drop dead. Congratulations. No, I’m not happy. And I get some people have to maybe get separate and maybe some people have health conditions. But a lot of people are focused on just the growth of the business and sacrifice everything else in their life. And I’m not impressed over big business. I’m impressed with someone. Their kids love them. They love their family. They’re constantly working. I mean, I’m with my wife, actually. Our anniversary’s coming up in two days. And I don’t even worry about when we got married. I mean, we’ve been together for thirty-five years since we’re 15 years old, you know, and I’m not saying that to impress anybody.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:26:24] Shit, it takes effort now multiple sides. It takes energy and it takes alignment and it takes clarity. You know what? That’s what people should look at and say, you know what I want to learn from Mike because of that, or maybe because I’m doing martial arts for thirty-five years, I want to learn from seeing a warrior because I want that level of discipline, the rest of the stuff. Listen, marketing, sales, operations systems. Yeah, there’s a formula. Right. What anybody can get the formula. The question is, do you have the level, do you have the level of mental capacity to execute on the formula? And most people don’t because they’ve been such stuck in this box. Right. And look, I could break apart almost like, look, I think Tim Ferriss is an amazing person. He writes this book for our work week. I think it’s incredible. I always say how sad it is that you hate what you do so much. You only want to do it for four hours a day. Or what about this? The MF great book. I read MF Imus Revisited. Forty-second version of Imus. I couldn’t figure out how to put a damn process in place. I had to go get someone to say, let me grab your hand, and you know what I learned and you know it because you’ve been in a world now I can show you in fifteen minutes build a process. You know why? Because here’s the deal. It’s not a one size fits all. You think what happens in one like it’s a generic thing.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:27:50] Now, this service industry is a very different service industry than some other business out there. It’s very different the way people think of the work. We’re the strongest blue-collar industry out there is us. And we’ve been in uncivilized blue-collar industry and then we’ve been the lost industry where people are doing this manipulative. And now finally we’re coming together and we’re and I’m I’m working at leading the CEO. We’re I mean, I’m one of the founders with my partner, Rob Zanotti. We’re looking to leave change, period. I want to get it back where you strap on your uniform, you put on your service uniform and you feel like you’re the most important human on earth. And you should be. You should be. Because everybody was running around Tersh. They’re like, oh, thank you, nurses, and thank you, doctors, all these essential workers. And I’m like, hang on a minute. Who’s going to mention what about the plumber that came to your house, climbed in sewage and crap. And Major, we’re forgetting about let’s talk about if all the plumbers, electricians put all these people go away, you can’t even do your doctor stuff. Now, I’m not saying they’re not important. They are. Right, right. Right. Well, let’s talk about really who’s import the blue-collar service industry. We’re the most important out there. We keep the damn infrastructure of the whole mechanical system of how you live today. Look, people lose electricity and they don’t even their panic and not because the electricity is out, not because of their food’s rotten. They can’t get on Facebook.
Tersh: [00:29:33] They can’t charge their phone.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:29:35] Right. I mean, that’s like our real world problem is you can’t you can’t charge your phone not to meet all this this other stuff.
Tersh: [00:29:43] So what do you think about one service company actually offering more than one trade? I mean, is that good, bad or mean? Or is it depending on them or their circumstances that that you would say it’s not a good idea?
Mike Agugliaro: [00:29:58] The world has changed. They say riches and niches. They used to say you got to be in plumbing and you got to be the number one plumbing company. And that was a great belief system. 15, 20 years ago, let me tell you what changed. Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, all of a sudden, humans were getting conditioned to go to one place and get as many things as they can. Now, I didn’t make this decision alone, and I believe we were at the service company owned Gold Medal, I believe we were the forefront. Yeah, there were some companies back then that did plumbing and electric, but very few did plumbing, heating, cooling, the larger drain and cleaning one day. Bathroom solutions like very few did it all that. Here’s how I came to this realization. Turned and went to a customer’s house. There was a customer for 20 years for me and Rob. I go there. Her kitchen is brand new. I didn’t do the electric, so I said, oh my God, the kitchen is beautiful. Who did the who did it? And she goes, Look, I’m sorry, I felt bad, but the contractor and the plumber that they had that company also did electrical and air conditioning. It was just too convenient. So I went home that night and I started to just think about things that experience target while all this stuff.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:31:34] And I said, holy shit, the number one thing people want is convenience. They want a one-stop shop. And that’s when we came together, said, that’s it, we’re going to do electrical, plumbing, HVAC, drink, everything. We’re going to become the one-stop shop. And I learned a lot along the way. Let me give a big nugget to everybody. We used to say we do plumbing because we did it and Tersh I used to think that if someone had a clogged drain they would think of a plumber. Oh yeah. Good point. They don’t, they think of a router company, they think of a green cleaning company. So one day I figured this out by serving my customers. Hey, the first thing that when you have a plumbing problem, who do you think about calling. Then they started saying for a drain problem router company and all this. And I said, holy crap, I rechanged is a branding. I added drain cleaning. We took our drain cleaning from a million to like three point five million in a year because you know what they didn’t think about like little clarity, little critical things. So today I believe that a one shop stop, not only does it make sense for your customers, also it goes to this. If you wanted to make an extra million dollars a year in your company, you could get a million customers to pay you a dollar.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:32:54] You could get one customer to pay a million. Why don’t I worry about fewer customers and serving them with everything they need? Here’s what the real question is. Why don’t people do that more? Well, it seems really confusing. And I don’t have a license. I mean, we did 19 million in Vaisse and I know how to do electric. That’s my background. Electrical license. I had my inspectors license. I know electrical really good. I don’t know how to charge an air conditioner. I don’t know coil size. I know that. But we did 19 million. I didn’t have the license. Here’s what I learned is one, it’s not as hard as you think to bring out another trade. And to most people in our world, that’s where we teach them how to bring on other trades. It changes their lives forever. We make the complex very simplistic. And when you’re surrounded by as many warriors that we have, how cool is it? I want to get into plumbing. It’s like, oh, perfect, I’m going to use this resource, meet this person. We have people in less than 30 days going in another trade and adding millions to their business overnight. And, you know, you can share because you’re my world, I could just be blowing smoke, you know what I mean?
Tersh: [00:34:08] No, I mean, it’s one hundred percent true because we’ve had people who have been doing septic tank for 60, 70 years and they’re like, hey, we’re going to bring on HHC. And then three U.S. contractors, including myself, we’re like, hey, if you need anything, let us know. I mean, it’s it’s so much a bit of a camaraderie in the organization is such a brotherhood that that like they’ve called and said, hey, I can’t get this this part figured out.
Tersh: [00:34:38] And I said, hey, you know, let me know and I’ll come up there and do a ride along with your lead.
Tersh: [00:34:44] Like, where else do you have somebody that’s been in the industry since 2005 that is not going to charge you anything? You can just say, hey, I’m going to come up there and take it and do a ride along with you for a couple of days. And, you know, that’s very common with within the organization. And I mean, we’ve got people that are coming here that are going to do a ride along just to see how and they’re larger than us and they’re going to see what we do this different. You know, it’s it’s really cool, you know, having that that just I mean, there’s no doubt about it. And this it’s a 100 percent sincere and there’s nothing that we’re going to get back out of that or there’s nothing that we expect to get back out of that.
Tersh: [00:35:22] We know that we’re going to get we’re going to get something, but we don’t expect that other than that. Yeah, like you said, respect getting that. And it’s it’s legit. I mean, it’s I mean. I don’t know. So going last year, this was the oddest thing in the world to me. I mean, like next level, odd to me, it was we joined, I think, June or July of last year. I should know that day I should have it like a celebration, honestly. But the date that we joined was it was in that summer period, about November, December ish, we started doing war planning, which is what we’re planning out our goals and our targets, top targets for next year. And then a little while later, Mike gets on this thing and he’s like, be prepared for 20, 20. And I’m like, OK, cool. Yeah, let’s be prepared for 20, 20. I expect that this is going to be like at the end of twenty eighteen, Mike probably said, hey, be prepared for twenty nineteen. This killed twenty nineteen, let’s just like go through it. And then it was like no I’m serious. Be prepared for twenty twenty. All right. Cool man. Twenty twenty. Got it. Got it. And he’s like no like seriously. Something’s happened in twenty twenty. Be prepared. I’m like I’m like you’re starting to scare me like. And then I was like OK, cool. Like we’re prepared. And so we’re like all right. I’m like this is new territory to me. So had you been in a full year. So I’m like, all right. I’m like, I’m going to listen and follow blindly. Like even if this doesn’t make sense to me, I’m going to do this. And, you know, we were actually looking at acquiring another business and they’re like, let’s just put a hold on that, you know, let’s do this. And and then this. The pandemic happened. And I’m like, what the hell, Mike? Like, are you a psychic? Like what? How did you know this? And then all of a sudden, like, we have guys around those dropping like flies. And then here we are growing the month that it died, you know, we grew two hundred and fifty-six percent and it was like, what the heck just happened.
Tersh: [00:37:32] Like how did Mike know this was coming. And so with that being said, with me prefacing that like, what am I expecting with twenty, twenty one. Like is there any insight there.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:37:43] Yeah. And if you notice search because you’re in this world with me, all the big Maltz, all the Facebook big mouths where they all go quiet real fast. Real fast. They got quiet. Right. Couple of reasons. One lack of integrity. And you know, the states are coming after people. And I’ll get all of you a warning out there. If you’re one of those people standing in front of your company saying you’ve got to sell, closing the deal, you got to make it, you’ll probably end up on Channel seven News and you’ll be one of those big mouths that become quiet and disappear real quick, too. So I will tell you, do the right thing. Here’s what we knew Tersh. And one thing we knew is I knew that I knew with the election year, the stars were aligning for a little bit. Look, when you got a president like Trump and when you got someone who’s going to shake the earth up and I’m not telling anybody who to vote for nothing, vote for who you want, I do believe there is one direction that will help us. And One Direction can send us into a state of recession that none of you have ever experienced. And then it will just be like some of the other presidents we’re going to make a change in, like maybe I made a bad decision, so maybe really do your homework here. The interesting part was as an industry standard, there was twenty-seven percent below.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:39:09] That was in March. People were twenty-seven percent below. The average person in our world was like eighty to one hundred and fifty percent above. Why. Well, the preparation you had to understand. Here’s what twenty-twenty, twenty, twenty-one looks like first. I’m excited about the rest of this year and because again when I talked about the industry convergence, you’re seeing a convergence amongst humans right now. People are really clear on one thing, what they like and what they don’t like, what they want and what they won’t tolerate. That’s I bet everybody listens. This knows how they want to live the size of a house. They’re going to live in, how they’re going to live with their kids. You know, church I, my wife and I, we homeschooled our kids. And so we were always the black sheep of the family. Nobody in my family has ever done that. Now, look, now everybody’s homeschooling. They don’t know what the hell to do. They’re panicking all over the place. Right. They’re panicking. Here’s what I would say. I’ve been talking about this slingshot effect that’s happening and people all of you out there in the industry that you’re listening and you’re like and you’re not in my world and you’re like, oh, we’re so busy to Mike. Oh, really? Do you know? A possible reset that might come right, let’s face it, anybody you were either strategic or you were strong enough just did not know any better.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:40:40] You fought against the mask with everyone else. Everything that was happening, you made money. We had three stages, a slingshot. We had the first one where this thing was starting to pull back. And that happened right around February. It started to pull back. And then we hit March. We hit this craziness, this COVID thing, which I’m still can’t make rational realization out of this thing. I met unbelief about it. But anybody who really looks at analytics just knows that this is just a grenade thrown them in the election year here. And with the slingshot, this pulls pulling back of opportunity because people were setting in with their money, they’re saying, wait, let me see. But what people were confused about is they weren’t saving money. They were spending money in different ways. Now, people had a lot of money and they still do. They canceled their weddings, their vacations. And that is we started to head into this slingshot pull back. We started to head into May and June and Slingshot one went forward. It let go not all the way. People said it’s summer. I’m willing to die and it’s OK. I’ll go to the beach even if I die like you want people doing it, I’m going to have a picnic there. You know, it’s very tough to stop human interaction.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:42:05] It creates a depression in so many other things. So a lot of spending happened this summer. So Slingshot one got launched right now as we head into the election into November, you’re going to see Slingshot get ready to be launched. Now, if you understand buying patterns, it’s not about this. People go shoulder season. Just, you know, anybody in this industry that talks about a shoulder season and if anybody’s watching this doesn’t know what that is. That’s like fall and spring. They’re like every year we’re slow and fall and spring. I call it a lack of education. You just don’t know what to do. You don’t know how to market. You don’t know how to do your business. Well, what happens is there’s behavioral drivers that drive money no matter what season, the holiday season. I guarantee people are already spending money now because before you used to say, well, like me, a couple of weeks before Christmas, we’ll run around. We spend too much money because we’re last minute. You don’t have to do that now because now you’ll just go online and punch buttons. So right around election time, you’re going to get slingshots, who’s going to let off? And people are ready to do the next level of enhancement. My wife and I were driving down the Jersey Shore because that’s where we live now, full time, and the amount of construction.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:43:28] I’m always like, you know, people in the service industry, when you drive by and you see a house being built, like, you know, you’re like the service industry hard at work.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:43:38] Right. And it’s funny I say the same thing because we do a bike ride around the bay. And every time I see somebody working on Saturday or Sunday and my wife go, oh, look, they’re working. And I go, they should be working there, man. Do you know what I mean? Exactly what they should be doing Saturday morning. I’m also proud of, like, really hard-working people. So these slingshots get ready to let loose based on what happens with the election. I’m excited that Slingshot number three and I really feel it’s going to launch and that’s going to be January, February. And why I’m so excited is because in my world, that warrior we’ve already built and had some of the most, fastest progressively growing service companies on Earth right now taking market share. And we have taken more companies from a couple of guys and a couple of trucks to 10, 15, 20 million dollars than anybody out there. And with this slingshot effect, I believe it’s going to open up a gateway for a lot of my warriors that I believe are going to build some of the biggest companies.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:44:47] And they’re going to exit in the next three to thirty-six to forty-eight months. And they’re going to become wealthy and they’re going to do really good things in the world. And some of them are going to go for another shot out of it, which will probably be another three. And I want to talk about selling in a minute, another three or six years, and they’ll go for another round and you’ll see more 50, 60, 70 million dollar companies on the planet than ever before before. This is the purge, OK? In the 2008 economy, we had a purging. It was literally cleansing the world. Contractors went out of business. They didn’t know how to run a business. We recovered contractors grew. The COVID situation was a mini purge. It’s not like if you were sitting there on your couch waiting for this all to go away, you pretty much told your wife they’re going to come and take our home. So that’s right. Mike, can I tell you a story about that?
Tersh: [00:45:51] So a fellow warrior who is a man, he’s making waves. I won’t mention his name, obviously, but he completely capitalized on that exact situation, wasn’t in the book space. And he’s a local company was sitting when it was just sitting on the couch when it happened. And then they’re like, we’re going to wait on BPP. As soon as we get PPP, we’re going to start paying you guys and we’re going to give you all the stuff. And then they got it and they mismanaged those funds. And the whole company was like, man, screw this guy. Like, we’re trying to find something else. We’ll. Our my buddy, he picked up one of them and then word got that they picked him up and that how great it was, and then all of a sudden the whole company came over to him and it’s like instant HPC division and now he’s just killing it with HUAC. And it’s so true because he was ready. He had the money set aside. He has prepared. He’s seen what was happening. And he was super freakin active that time. And then one of the things that I really attribute to CEO Warrior was like I very, very easily could have taken, you know, the month of May and said, hey, we’re going to see what’s going to happen here. Like, it was a real fear a sort of a service business owner. The uncertainty you’re getting your PPY or your other the other loans that they were giving you. And it was almost like, hey, let’s get this and sit on it because we don’t know what’s happening.
Tersh: [00:47:30] Well, Mike and everybody, Rob and Larry and Denise and just everybody, they just they’re like, Nah, Mike Disney going to Disney out either. They’re like, Nah, you’re not going to do that. We’re growing right now. We’re going to challenge you to have your best month ever. We’re like, okay, challenge accepted, the best month ever contest. So we got this. And so then it’s like, OK, like constantly checking in and then a that really could have been a drag. Months was I mean we grew 256 percent and it was the weirdest thing in the world because the previous year, so it was 256 percent over previous May and it was like that May was a not a bad month. It was your normal, you know, an effect that you have every summer like it was a steady incline into the summer months. And so it wasn’t like we had a bad day the previous year and it just blew me away. And even we were talking in our AIM group, which is our small niche group that’s inside of CEO Warrior that we were talking and we were like, man, this is crazy. You’re like we’re all we’re doing is implementing the things that we’re being told like this is best practice is what you should be doing, X, Y, and Z. And here we are. We’re you know, we’re scaling. And then you’re like, well, I’m struggling here. And so instead of our AIM group were like, oh, well, this is what you need to do.
Tersh: [00:49:03] And it’s the weirdest thing, because instead of our AIM group, as you said earlier like there are guys in there that are eight, 10 million. And then there was me that was like five hundred thousand, you know, or seven hundred thousand last year. And so it was it’s just the wildest thing is not one of those things where it’s like, hey, look at this company. They’re doing 32 million. Like everybody do what they’re doing because you know and you understand that if you’re one guy in a truck, you’re not going to have the same H.R. department that someone that’s at 10 million is going to have. And that’s something that was really hard for me whenever I first started, because I was I instantly had that mentality. Whenever I was sitting at that roundtable up in New Jersey, I’m like, dude, you know, Bart, he’s like, I’m like, he’s me I’m I got to get to there. Or Steve Addario. He was right there at my table. I’m like, he was my table lead at that event. And I’m like, oh, man, we’re both bald. We’re buddies like that. Like, yeah. And then so I’m like, how do I do that? And then it’s like.
Tersh: [00:50:11] Just steps along the way and then it’s like, man, we went to that had been in the plug for that event. So whenever I went to that event, I was like, man, I don’t know about this. Like I told you, I was talking to my buddy in Charleston, wasn’t sure about it left that I’ve been with and within the next month made one hundred thousand dollars off of stuff that we implemented from that event. And it was not even like inside worst stuff. It was just the stuff we took from that event. Because, you know, you go to an event like that and a lot of times it’s like these videos that you watch or these is the infographics on Facebook. And it’s like, look how I did this. And I took my business from this to this. And all you do is click this to find out more. And it wasn’t like that. It was like. Here’s everything you need, just go do it and it’s like, wait a minute, you’re giving me too much information like you’re giving too much stuff for free. This doesn’t make sense, Mike. Like, why are we getting so much stuff for free? And so it was like one of those things where, like, I literally so I had these if you can see this, I had these implementation cards that I got. And every time I go to an event, we had these cards that we use the storage optimizer cards. And I came back with a massive stack of them and I was just putting them to work even before I was in to see a warrior.
Tersh: [00:51:30] And it was man, it was whenever before I did it, I was like, man, this is way too expensive for me, but I’m going to do it because I’ve seen so many people doing it. And I was actually peer pressured in by Mike Mikhailovich because I asked him because I have seen he was going to be a keynote speaker at the event on that. And I was buddies with him. I was like, hey, man, is this worth it? And he was like, Man, you’re an idiot if you don’t go. He said I believe in it so much so that I’ll pay for it if you don’t want to. And I was like, Oh, man, souled, I’ll do it. So then I went and did it. And it was I mean, obviously, like it was life-changing for real. And the only thing, though, that I have about that event was I had to take off three or four days, whatever it was like kind of in the middle of the summer. And it was kind of our busy season. But it was like during the day. And at that time it was only like two of us in the business, really. And we went up there. Is there something I know you’ve had that conversation a lot like, hey, if we could just do this in the afternoons would be a lot easier. Is there ever going to be something where we can do this in the evenings or not have to take off the whole full day during the week and type stuff? Is that a game plan or thought process within you?
Mike Agugliaro: [00:52:54] Yeah, yeah. I mean, we just build something and I want to talk because while a lot of great information he gave her, I want to go back to the buying thing first. I want all of you to know I want to protect a bunch of you that watch this from what I call hyena’s, there’s a difference between wolves and hyenas. Wolves are a pack. They’re normally protecting the family, more than one person. And hyenas are the savage beast that comes from behind. And they attack you. Yeah. Any of you guys that are thinking that, watch this. Do me a favor. For whatever it’s worth. Don’t let somebody is like, hey, Turse, I’d love to just come to visit your company and hang out and like, you don’t know them and they’re not. The pack of wolves doesn’t do it. They don’t have good intentions for you. Good point. Or also what I’ve seen church today is this, hey, why don’t you send me your PNL and I’ll evaluate it for you. Oh, congratulations. You just got eaten by the hyenas. Everybody really be careful out there.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:53:59] Again, Tersh is not telling you to come to see you. Worry or not, I will just tell you that we’re very protective area and we protect each other here. And the other thing is that I find a lot of people we have our fingerprints on some of the fastest-growing companies out there. I mean, a lot of them. But they will tell you this because, like, they don’t want you to know that they you know, we helped them. I mean, there are companies like in Florida, the best services. There are other guys like Lou, a bike. There are guys like Tommy Weber. I mean, there are companies all over the place probably. And I can’t say all of them, but I’m it’s a huge percentage of some of the largest companies, you know, today. And you admire have CEO warrior fingerprints on it. Let me talk about the solution that we solved here. The solution that we solved was. I realize that some of you, maybe some of you even watching this, you can’t spend three complete days and it’s forty hours over three days. Yeah.
Tersh: [00:55:04] It’s not like you don’t get off at four o’clock and go to the bar and hang out with everybody. Chit chat notes. If you’re going to hang out with somebody, you’re hanging out with what’s the only store that’s open? That’s not they don’t have them here. Well, yeah, well, the only thing is open. If you’re going to go hang out, you’re going to hang out there for thirty minutes because you’re getting up at eleven, twelve, one o’clock in the morning.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:55:26] Yeah. And it’s for a reason we do forty hours over three days because if you won’t do forty hours over three days will you really do the work anyway. I mean I just had a guy tell me he doesn’t know why he’s not growing and he, he works like, you know, seven to seven to three. I’m like I don’t even know how you’re going to like Wendy. You’re like what comes to mind and stuff seven to three. Like I don’t even know what you’re telling me. So but I do realize a lot of people have given us feedback, are like, I’d love it, but I can’t lose three days’ work. So we just came out and revolutionized a brand new training. I will tell you. Let me give a little disclaimer. The fact that you have a credit card does not give you permission to come to this training. We’re very different. We approve of who comes to the training. You’re welcome to say I want in. If you could buy it online. If you want, we will review you. And the last event we did, I think we told four people, sorry, we just don’t see it as a great fit. We gave it back one hundred percent of their money. Why? We wanted to we got the right people in the room.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:56:35] It’s very, very rare, very rare to end up on one of our training and go, that’s a bad human there. That’s an ego-driven because we just don’t allow that stuff. So we came up and I said, well, I wonder Tersh I wonder if we could change more companies faster, easier if we allow them to make money during the day and we train them at night. So we built a service business night school. I’m so pumped over this. I believe it’s a brand new concept in the service industry and service business night school. It’s really easy. It’s two nights a week for three weeks, OK? Two nights a week for three weeks. It’s roughly around four hours a night. We start late in the day. I think it starts at six and ends around 10:00 Eastern time. But guess what, if it’s OK with you, I’ll end when we’re done, not when the clock strikes ten, OK? Because if we’re not done, we’re going to keep going. I would tell everybody. Our training, you got your big boy or big girl pants because you’re coming to us because you want life to be very different in your future, you want life for your children, your family. And I know this better than anyone. I mean, I think I did not wake up one day knowing how to grow a business.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:57:50] I did it wrong for about ten to 12 years. And I always say, like, if you want to know what my wife’s life was like, it’s like me building, trying to grow a company and dragging her through the mud. It was not the life my wife or my kids deserve. So any of you that are not given your family the life they deserve, I challenge you to. If not, consider what I have. Consider something that can help you. But it’s it’s three weeks, two nights a week, Tuesday and Thursday. So you’re going to be able to crank out on your Mondays, get your work done. You’re going to be able to finish strong on Fridays. Here’s what I’m so pumped about. TERs is before three days. So there’s you’re trying to implement stuff, but three days in a row. Forty hours now Tuesday you learn the application. Wednesday, Thursday we review. Thursday you learn application till next Tuesday over three three weeks. My prediction is we will easily make people if not twenty-five fifty an extra one hundred grand or more in less than three weeks. Now look we give a million-dollar guarantee if by the second training, which is eight hours total or more of training, you’re like, you know what, the CEO warrior, it’s not a fit for me.
Mike Agugliaro: [00:59:06] I don’t love it. No problem. Just send us back to work. Look to give me a hundred percent refund, we’ll probably send you a fruit basket and say sorry that it wasn’t a fit for you. Will we? That rarely happens that we ever give back a dollar for our trainings because we’re really good at what we do. And it’s a tax-deductible, most of it for wherever you live. So you already get the benefit of that. We do send you for this training a huge experience. It’s a big box like this. It’s filled with a spiral-bound workbook. It’s got strategy optimizer cards. Here’s the last thing I’ll say about this for time’s sake, for all of you, you’re going to leave with a 90 day blueprint. Your 90 day blueprint, not the made up stuff, not some generic plan that everybody does the same 90 days, it’s your plan, your company, we approve it when you’re done after three weeks, you’ll know exactly what to do. The cool thing is you will already be doing stuff before you even finish building your 90 day blueprint. There is an incentive right now. There’s a bunch of bonuses. Look, here’s what I would say. If you want to attend this, here’s a couple of choices.
Mike Agugliaro: [01:00:21] You could go to www.servicebusinessnightschool.com and check it out. See if its a fit on there has our phone number and stuff. You could private message me on Facebook and say, hey, can you tell me more? I’ll connect you with one of our growth advisors or one of our team. They’ll make sure you’re a fit for us and we’re a fit for you. We promise we will not let you move forward if we don’t feel that you’re fit. And yeah, I hope you’ll consider it for those of you that want to move quickly and get ready for stage two and stage three of the slingshot. I’ll tell you this. If it’s not us, you’d better find someone who you feel is really smart, where you have a power of proximity. You’re around great people who understand this industry well. And if they are guilty, if these great people you’re thinking about, if it’s not us and it’s someone trying to teach you to do something. Thirty-five years ago, I got news for you. We didn’t have iPhones, we didn’t have Google. The world has changed. Get around people that are super modern know exactly how to do it. And we’re doing it with a whole bunch of companies in the world.
Tersh: [01:01:26] So that’s so awesome. And Jerry Street is watching us live on Facebook. And he said implementation cards and a plan will leave you with your life changing, with a life changing mindset shift.
Mike Agugliaro: [01:01:39] It must be on break because his ass is supposed to be on another train and so you better be paid. It will go in on Ronin for presentation. I’m here because the other master advisors are teaching me better. You better be focused and man is probably like he’s going to pull this on me. He’s going to be like, yeah, we’re going to do a screening on presentation. And you’re presenting right now like I want to watch. Don’t pull that stuff on me.
Tersh: [01:02:08] Joshua Staley’s is one hundred percent. Right. That’s funny. Yeah. And yeah, that’s funny. That’s good stuff. Chris Davison, he actually had to jump off to go join his aim goal, which is like I was saying, as are many groups.
Mike Agugliaro: [01:02:21] It’s Friday, that’s right. Yeah. Know that thing. I’m always getting in trouble because I got trouble this time because we did these three trainings last week, Thursday, Friday, this week, Thursday, Friday and next week, Thursday, Friday. And I got my ass like we have our eighteen calls. We go together. What did you do it? I’m like, oh shit. I won’t do that. I promise I won’t do that anymore. So I learned, I learned my lesson. I won’t do that no more for any warriors there. Listen, and we’re not putting stuff on Fridays because I know how serious everything that’s like the Air SEAL Team six right there. That’s power. And I love it because we have so many generals that. Care so much about everybody in the group, doesn’t matter if you’re one guy in a truck or you have 100 guys, it’s such it’s such a lot of power that you could go to a group. And for those of you listening that are not in something like this. Yeah, I love it, brother. I love it. You’re one of them that serves so well. You know, you got to be in a group where you could also be up front and honest with people, tell them, hey, man, I’m doing good or I’m not doing good. My wife loves me this week. She’s pissed off at me. You got to have a safe place where you can you can talk openly and then you’re welcome in the big community, too. But there’s nothing like a small little group where you can be honest with no judgment. So I am so pumped about that cool man.
Tersh: [01:03:51] Mike, thanks for coming on the show.
Mike Agugliaro: [01:03:53] Yeah, thank you. Go to service business night school dotcom if you’re interested. If not, I love all of you in the industry. If I could serve in any way, let me know.
Tersh: [01:04:00] Thank you, everybody. Be good. Be good. Thank you again for watching or listening to this episode of a Service Business Mastery podcast. The podcast focused on service business owners, managers and technicians who are considering becoming business owners themselves. I hope you found value in this episode. I know I did. And I’m even in my case world if you are considering and you’re not sure you’re on the fence, reach out to anybody. If you’re watching this live, there’s guys in this group. I mean, there’s Scott Ōba, there’s guys in that chat feed that are saying, hey, if you don’t know if it’s worth it, let me know and I’ll have a conversation with you on the same way. Reach out to me. Let me know. Don’t miss this event. There’s other events that happen. But this this is next level, because whenever we’re at those events with like, man, I want to put I want to implement this on and implement this, I don’t have time to implement it.
Tersh: [01:04:47] I want to implement it. Now, this is a perfect the perfect storm. You have a couple you have a day between each one of these classes and you can implement it and you can come back with those questions that whenever you get feedback from your team is like, hey, what about this question? Like instantly you can come back to the next class. So honestly, it’s going to be a no brainer to join this class. And I think I’m going to be there to ask for Julie’s permission. But anyway, with that being said, I hope you have a great week and we’ll talk again soon.